Janus
Originally a Lantean scientist who evacuated Atlantis after their defeat against the Wraith, Janus traveled amongst multiple alternate realities during his unsuccessful time travel experiments, only to return to our timeline as an Alterra. Time Travel Experiments After the Lanteans returned to Earth and spread out, they lost track of Janus and never discovered what had happened to him. Janus thought he was traveling through time, however, he'd made a grave miscalculation that resulted in his unanswered disappearance. Instead of traveling through time in his modified Jumper, Janus was instead creating alternate realities in sync with the 'time' he thought he was traveling to. When he finally realized his mistake it was too late. He had no way of finding his way back to his original timeline. Alterra After discovering his mistake, Janus went to the only people he knew of that could help him...the Alterra. Janus 'traveled' back in time, creating an alternate reality where he emerged millions of years prior during the time before the plague. He sought out their assistance, warning them of the coming plague at the same time. As they preparred to face the coming catastrophe, they helped Janus develop a way to move between existing realities instead ofcreating new ones, but in doing so Janus couldn't pick the 'time' he wanted to emerge in. All timelines were progressing at an equal rate, so whichever 'time' he found himself in when transitioning was dependent on the individual reality. Randomly searching for his original timeline, he left the Alterra to their future battle with the plague and began 'surfing' the multitude of alternate realities. Navigational System As Janus searched for his original timeline, he began working on a way to chart his passage. Over time he was able to record timelines he'd been to previously, essentially planting a 'flag' in each one that he went through. He began compiling a map of the different realities and began to get his 'bearings.' After compiling several thousand entries in his database, Janus began working on a sensor package to be able to detect other timelines he hadn't yet been to. Once this piece of the scientific puzzle was perfected, Janus began unraveling the chaos of his previous journey through 'time.' New Alterra Janus did succeed in backtracking and discovering his 'home' reality, but not before happening across several timelines where the Alterra had been reborn. He investigated these events in many realities, eventually creating more of his own so that he could 'see' the future outcomes of events. The Alterra grew and expanded...then all of a sudden they vanished. Janus continued to investigate and determined the cause of their second extinction...a great war. Stevenson Janus eventually made contact with the Alterra in one of these alternate realities to try and determine what was happening. The leader of the Alterra was a man by the name of Ryan Stevenson, who, after hearing the story of Janus's odyssey entrusted him with the secret of his mission against the Ascended Empire as well as giving him his blessing to use the Repository of Knowledge and become an Alterra so that he would have full access to their knowledge. Janus in turn relayed the 'future' outcome, and eventually agreed to help Stevenson in his war while Janus's reality crept along until the point where events would hopefully conspire to see the rebirth of the Alterra there as well. He had 10,000 years to wait...so why not go to war and help out his duplicates, not to mention gather vital intel if the same war was to happen in his original timeline. Transformation When Janus underwent the physical and mental transformation into an Alterra, it opened his eyes to many things, washing away his Lantean ignorance and customs. He grew in both intellect and wisdom, as well as garnering a new body with a new face. Janus chose to genetically retake his former visiage with some cosmetic alterations, so that the Alterra Janus would look the same as the Lantean Janus. Repeated Failure Janus helped many Stevensons in many alternate realities, but all eventually failed in their war against the Ascended Empire. Each of the Stevensons bid Janus to leave before the end and pass on what he had learned to another, but no matter how many times Janus tried, each and every time the Ascended Empire won. Many different tactics were employed, including staying 'hidden' which resulted in the Ascended Empire starting the second war on their own, without the usual provocation of the Alterrans challenging the Empire. Janus continued to learn, to study, and to ultimately come no closer to a solution...then his time was up. Original Timeline Janus returned to his original timeline to discover that events were taking place much in the way they had before, though there were always differences. He revealed himself to the Stevenson and the revelation of all that had transpired to other versions of himself and began planning the rise of the Alterrans again, hoping to find the solution that would result in the defeat of the Ascended Empire...however, this was the last chance Janus had to save his reality. If they failed here and now, he would either be dead or forced to escape back into the wilds of multiple realities again...something that he did not want to do a second time. Battle of the Siege Janus recreated his original Attero Device for use in the war against the Wraith, given the fact that the Alterra had the ability to remote control the stargates from the gate center at will and could prevent the catastrophic overload caused by the device simply by turning them off before it was activated. The device worked brilliantly, destroying many Wraith vessels when they attempted to flee Lantea via hyperspace. With their fellow Wraith aware that they couldn't escape, they fled on realspace engines, eventually hunted down by the Alterra who rescued their Human captives. The Attero Device is still being used in much small situations where the Alterrans want to prevent the Wraith from fleeing. Given that the Wraith don't know when the device is off or on, it has provided a strong deterent to hyperspace travel, keeping their movements at a minimum. Eventually though, they realized they still have access to the stargates and could determine that the Alterra hadn't left it on continuously. That said, they never know when it will come back on. For that reason alone, the Attero Device has proved its worth. Category:Characters